CMS Five-Star Quality Rating System

Pantea Ghasemi, USC Pharm.D. Candidate of 2015 Preceptor Dr. Craig Stern Pro Pharma Pharmaceutical Consultants, Inc. April 24, 2015

Objectives

1. Understand the background on Medicare

2. Understand the Five-Star Quality Rating System

3. Analyze how the Rating is calculated

4. Outcomes of Five-Star Rating

5. Understand strengths and weaknesses of the Five-Star Rating System

Background • Improve quality of care

• Strengthen Medicare by making health plans report to national data bases measurements of their measured quality of care

Affordable Care Act (ACA)

• Federal agency that administers Medicare

• Designed the Five-Star quality rating system in 2007

Centers of Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS)

• Allows for patients to select a health plan

• Allows to compare and measure quality of care among different health plans

Five-Star Quality Rating System

Background-Medicare

Types Description

Part A Inpatient Services

Part B Outpatient Services

Part C Medicare Advantage (Part A+B, Part D optional)

Part D Prescription drug Plan

Five-Star Quality Rating System • It’s a quality and performance scoring method

for certain plans offered to Medicare beneficiaries

• Allows patients to compare performance among health plans

Scale

5 Excellent

4 Above Average

3 Average

2 Below Average

1 Poor Performance

Five-Star Quality Rating System: 5 Star Health Plan Examples

1) Medicare Advantage Plans with Prescription Drug Coverage

• Kaiser Foundation HP, Inc. (California)

• CarePlus Health Plan Inc. (Florida)

• Group Health Plan (Washington)

• Gundersen HP (Wisconsin)

• Providence HP (Oregon)

• Martin’s Point Generations, LLC (Maine)

• Healthspan Integrated Care (Ohio)

Five-Star Quality Rating System: Evaluation

• Ratings combine scores for types of services each plan offers

• Based on Measures related to

1. Clinical performance

2. Customer Service

3. Member Satisfaction

• Measure: Specific Characteristic

1. Quality and performance

2. Each assigned a star rating

• Domain: Categories

1. Each assigned an average star rating

Five-Star Quality Rating System: Part C Medicare Advantage

• 36 Measures in 5 Domains:

1. Staying Healthy: Screenings, Tests, and Vaccines

2. Managing chronic (long-term) conditions

3. Managing responsiveness and care

4. Member complaints, problems getting services, and choosing to leave a plan

5. Health plan customer service

Five-Star Quality Rating System: Part D-Prescription Plan

• 17 Measures in 4 Domains:

1. Drug plan customer service

2. Member complaints, problems getting services, and choosing to leave the plan

3. Member experience with drug plan

4. Drug pricing and patient safety

Five-Star Quality Rating System: Data Collection

Data collected

from patients as well as physicians

Healthcare Effectiveness

Data and Information Set

(HEDIS)

Consumer Assessment of

Healthcare Providers and

Systems (CAHPS)

Medicare Healthcare

Outcomes Survey (HOS)

CMS administrative

data

Calculating the Rating

Individual Measures

Domain Level (Part C and D)

Part C and D Summary

Ratings

Calculated by taking the weighted average of the measure level ratings plus the i-Factor

Average of individual measure Star Ratings

Measure Weight

Outcome measures

3

Intermediate outcome measure

3

Patient experience measures

1.5

Access measures

1.5

Process measures

1

Example Calculation

• Pantea’s Health Plan: Overall Star-Rating: 5 Stars!

Example Calculation- Bonus Payments

2015

Outcomes of Star Rating The average star rating weighted by enrollment last year in 2014 compared to 2013: MA-PD: 3.66 vs 3.44 PDP: 3.30 vs. 2.96

2013 Star Rating: MA+PDP

2014 Star Rating: MA+PDP

Strengths of Five-Star Rating System

• Creates Accountability for performance and finance for health plans

• Easy way for patients to compare health plans

• Sets up a system to provide and improve quality of care

• With the Quality Bonus Payments creates an incentive for health plans to continue with the process of improving quality of care

• The rating system ultimately will lower utilization of care

Weaknesses of the Star-Rating System

• Performance can be relative

• Patient surveys are subjective

• Variable depending on population and geography

• Need more outcome measures

Summary

• Star-Rating system allows “apple to apple” comparison among health plans

• Measures different domains (outcomes and patient satisfaction) with corresponding weights

• Shows promise in improving quality of care

• Contains strengths and weaknesses where there is room for improvement

References 1. Clark, A., Piper, B., & Dieguez, G. “The Medicare Advantage 5-Star Rating

Program and Its Implications for Actuaries.” Society of Actuaries: Health Watch, 2012, 2-9.

2. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. Fact Sheet 2014 Star Rating. Pp 1-11. Retrieved April 22, 2015. http://www.chcs.org/media/2014_Star_Ratings_FactSheet_092713.pdf

3. Medicare Advantage Plans. Medicare.gov. 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2015, from http://www.medicare.gov 4. Framework for Improving Medicare Plan Star Ratings. December 2011. Retrieved

April 19, 2015, from http://amcp.org/QBP_framework/ 5. Part C and D Performance Data. Updated March 9, 2015. Retrieved April 19, 2015,

http://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Prescription-Drug-Coverage/PrescriptionDrugCovGenIn/PerformanceData.html

Thank You!

Any Questions?